Ok, yesterday didn’t hold that much news on the schools front. An election was scheduled for March 8th, which just so happens to be the date of the HD-98 election, so that saves us a little money.

The County Commission, who will have to set the Board of Education districts for either the current structure of Shelby County Schools, or the new County wide Shelby County Schools started looking at the possibility of a HUGE elected board. Commissioner Mike Ritz proposed 23 members. That seems a little high, but I’m all about letting representative democracy work so what the hey? Gonna need a new board room.

Of course, all of this talk is a bit premature, as the voting hasn’t even started, and we have no idea how Senator Mark Norris and his buddies in Nashville are going to muddy the waters. He’s indicated that he intends to pursue his legislation, even if the outcome of the current effort could lead to the system both he and City Councilman Shea Flinn prefer. Go read Jackson for more on that.

In the end, for right now at least, we’ve got an opportunity to vote as Memphians on the fate of our schools. There are still a lot of open questions, most of which have nothing to do with the political process we’re currently going through. The task for supporters, at least in my view, is to get the vote out, and start talking about what ideas we’d like to see implemented after the election.

We have an opportunity to start a county wide discussion on education. We need to take advantage of it.